Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (13 page)

Chapter
Thirteen

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

T
he snow grew
dangerously deep and if the Jeep got stuck now, they would probably die. A mile
or more between farmhouses, darkness fell with eerie stealth and if they had to
walk out there with those things hiding in the moonlit shadows, they wouldn’t
make it far. Not in this snow.

“There!” Dan cried
from the backseat, pointing up ahead.

Paul slowed down, stingily
killing the Grand Cherokee’s momentum up a gradual snow-covered hill, telling
himself the Trailhawk package would get them out of the deep stuff if they had
to stop. A hooded figure exited the driver’s side of the minivan and waved
their hands over their head.

“Wait,” Dan hissed,
leaning forward. “What if they’re rapists?”

Paul came to an
unenthusiastic stop, trading a nervous look with Sophia in the seat next to him.

“Think about it,
man. There are no cops anymore! Even if there are, they’re probably a little on
the busy side right about now.”

“Dan, we’re going
to help them if we can because that’s what people do in times like these.” Paul
put it in park and nonchalantly dug beneath his heavy coat to draw his sidearm.

“Not all people,
dude.”

The hooded figure
trudged closer through the falling snow.

“You think it’s a
trap?” Sophia whispered, drawing the pink 9mm from her hip. After barely
escaping Des Moines with their lives, she was jumpy and Paul didn’t blame her. Hell
had thrown back its gates and every move could be their last. Death lurked
around every corner and caution was as necessary as air and ammo.

The person stopped
at Paul’s window, the fur lined hood hiding their face. His right hand
tightened around the Beretta as he rolled the window down with the click of a
button.

“Thank God!” the
woman panted, snowflakes swirling in through the open window. “We’re stuck; can
you give us a lift?”

Paul stared at her
for a few wavering seconds before nodding to the backseat. “Hurry,” he replied
over the howling wind, groaning when he saw her march back to the van and gather
up two small kids from the backseat. Where were they supposed to take them? He
knew before they even got inside the Jeep that giving them a
lift
in this world entailed a lot more
than dropping them off at an auto repair shop.

Adoption.

That’s what it
meant now.

“Thank you so
much,” the woman breathed, slamming the backdoor shut and squeezing in next to
her two boys, nearly pushing Dan out the other side. “Matt climb in the back.”
In the rearview mirror, Paul watched Matt kick Dan in the head as he climbed in
back.

“Where to?” Paul
asked, catching an elbow from Sophia.

The woman blew out
a long white breath and Paul turned up the heater. “I’m Carla and this is
Mike,” she said, gesturing to the older kid sitting between her and Dan. “And that’s
Matt in the back.”

Sophia twisted
around in her seat. “Are you all okay?”

Carla pulled her
hood back and shook the snow from her bangs. “We’re fine; just pregnant and scared
to death.”

Sophia’s eyebrows
drew together. “You’re pregnant?”

Oh great
, Paul thought, putting the vehicle in
drive.

Carla sighed. “Do
you know what in the world is going on out there?”

“We know as much
as you do,” Dan replied, pulling a seatbelt out from under him.

Paul gave the Jeep
some gas, heart thumping in his chest. It seemed like two more inches had fallen
since they’d stopped and this was the moment of truth. The Jeep’s tires began
to turn, sinking their knobby teeth into the fresh powder, each wheel getting
the independent dose of energy it required. Slowly, he pulled around the
minivan, no longer able to tell where the gravel road started and stopped.
Relief rushed through his veins as the SUV gained traction. Glancing in his
mirror, he half expected to see a hundred of those dead things giving chase but
all he could see were red taillights reflecting off the white snowfall.

“Whatever it is,
we have to find somewhere to hide for the night. They seem to come out more
when it’s dark,” he said, turning to Sophia, who smiled at him through broken
teeth and peeling lips. Pressing against his car door, his breath hitched as
jagged cracks spider webbed through her ashen skin. Dan leaned between them,
missing an eyeball and blood running from the exposed socket onto the console.

“The dead aren’t
here to destroy you, Paul,” he said, his jaw dangling by a sinewy thread.

Sophia set an icy
hand on Paul’s leg. “We’re here to help you.”

“But you’re going
to need more than a rainbow knife,” Matt said from the back, his throat ripped
open and blood squirting out in pulsating bursts.

Mike frowned. “Rambo
knife, doofus,” he said, a dark trail oozing from a bullet hole in his
forehead.

“Michael,” Carla
snapped, scratching at a nasty gash in her cheek. “Don’t call your brother
names.”

“What the fuck!”
Paul screamed, his gaze jerking back to Sophia when she dug her thick yellow
nails into his leg.

Long stringy hair
hung in her face, nearly hiding her sunken eyes as the Jeep continued down the
road on autopilot. “Stay the course,” she said with a squeeze.

Dan set a
decomposing hand on Paul’s shoulder that smelled like a soiled diaper. “Get to
Camp Dodge and forget everything else.”

Paul looked back
to the road and slammed on the brakes as his mom darted across the roadway in
an open robe. The Jeep slammed into her, spraying the windshield with blood as
dark as oil. His eyelids flipped open to find Wendy staring back and Curtis
behind the wheel of the F-150. Slouched in the backseat, Paul ran a hand down
his sweaty face and exhaled a pent-up breath. “Jesus.”

Wendy rubbed his
leg. “You’re okay. Just another dream.”

He sat up and
grimaced with a kink in his neck from leaning against the door, squinting out
the sun-splashed windows. “Where are we?” he asked, his dry tongue clicking
against the roof of his mouth.

“Bumfuck nowhere, Oklahoma,”
Curtis answered, leading the truck down some back road way too fast. “Where the
beer is warm and Ethel’s bite is worse than her bark.”

“How long was I
out?”

“Since we left,”
Stephanie said, twisting around in the front seat and staring at him over a
pair of sunglasses. “You were talking in your sleep for a while but we didn’t
want to wake you.”

“I was? What’d I
say?”

“Something about
liking it in the ass.”

“Curtis,”
Stephanie groaned.

“Never would’ve
guessed you for a fudge packer, Paul, but I guess different anal strokes for
different folks.”

Stephanie smacked
Curtis in the arm, drawing his sharp laughter.

“You kept saying
she’s pregnant, she’s pregnant.” Wendy took Paul’s hand. “Who was pregnant?
Sophia?”

Sinking into the
backseat, the nightmare receded back into the vapor where it came from faster
than he could snatch at bits and pieces of it. “Carla.”

Wendy creased her
brow while a dilapidated two-story house zipped past in the background. “The
soccer mom?”

He nodded.

“She was
pregnant?”

“No, she wasn’t.”
He blew through his lips. “Thank God.”

Curtis turned on
the stereo, wasting no time singing along at the top of his lungs. “I often
think about that summer, the sweat the moonlight and the lace…”

Paul dropped his
face into both hands, a dull thud knocking behind his left eye.

“And I have rarely
held another, when I haven’t seen her face.” Curtis drummed his fingers against
the wheel. “And every time I pass a wheat field, and watch it dancing with the
wind…”

Paul pulled his
face from his hands. “Do you ever listen to anything besides Garth fucking
Brooks?” he snapped, searing Curtis in the mirror. “Jesus!”

“U know what,
Paul? I feel for everything you’ve been through but I’m about two cunt hairs
from kicking your ass.”

“Yeah, you tried
that one already, remember? Didn’t work out so hot for ya.”

“Well you know
what I always say, if at first you don’t succeed…”

“Look out!”
Stephanie braced for impact.

Curtis cranked the
wheel hard left, swerving around a little boy dragging a pink teddy bear down
the road – both he and the bear missing their left arms. “Sonofabitch!” Curtis
yelled, narrowly regaining control of the vehicle and hammering down on the gas
pedal. “Fucking retard’s walking right down the middle of the goddamn road!”

“Stop saying that
word, Curtis!”

He looked at
Stephanie, folding his brow. “
Fucking
?”

“You know what
word I mean! You didn’t get away with it in the old world and I’m not about to
let you get away with it in this one. Don’t say it again.”

“Okay. Jesus, I’m
sorry.”

“How about you
slow down a little before you kill us?”

“How about you
kiss my ass,
Paul
? I’m a professional
driver.
Remember
?”

“Yeah, until you
have to make a right turn; then we’re all screwed.”

“Ha-ha. Never
heard that one before.”

“Just slow down a
little, will ya?”

Curtis shot him a
cocky grin and went even faster, stepping on Paul’s last nerve.

He shook his head
and bit his lip, resigning to give up now before his irritation made him shoot
Curtis in the back of the head. The fact that he was capable of such a thing
frightened him, like when an alcoholic wakes up in his car at 4am and has no
idea where he’s at or how he got there.

Curtis whipped
into the parking lot of a dated, sand-colored building sitting on the outskirts
of another small town that looked just like the one before it.

Stephanie craned
her neck for a better view out the front windshield, jerking with an abrupt
stop in motion. “A police station?”

☠

Curtis was right.
They needed handcuffs in case they ran into any more unsavory types, and any guns
and ammo would be a bonus. Sunlight poured through the cop shop’s windows, the front
door unlocked and intact. Paul double-checked his safety. It was in a foreign
spot to him and he’d practiced flipping it on and off a hundred times but this
was live action and he had to be sure it was off. A new tick for the new world.
Despite distinctly remembering clicking the safety off upon exiting the
vehicle, he checked again. It was off and everyone traded quiet glances before
stepping inside and locking the deadbolt behind them. With weapons at eye level,
they stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall of defense that gave Paul a
false sense of security. Their shadows stretched before them, falling over some
loose papers and donuts scattered about the floor. Other than that, the place
looked like it hadn’t been touched, like it probably did the day the station
started getting odd calls from the public.

911, what’s your emergency?

Yeah hi, there’s a man standing in my garden in the
backyard.

911, what’s your emergency?

Umm, my neighbor is dragging a pitchfork down the
middle of the road.

911, what’s your…?

Please help us!
I’m
locked in the bathroom with my daughter! And my husband is trying to break down
the door!

Paul could see it in
his head now. It wouldn’t have taken long for a rolling wave of death and
destruction to overwhelm the modest police force, which explained the quiet
buzzing in his ears. Everyone was gone. Everyone.

Curtis tried
opening a metal door behind the front desk. “Locked,” he said, cupping his face
and peering through the narrow window running through it.

“There’s some
blood on the floor over here,” Wendy whispered, gun clutched tightly in her
hands.

Paul reached out and
gently adjusted Stephanie’s grip on her gun. “Not the cup and saucer, remember?
Wrap your support hand over your dominant hand.”

She gave him a quick
nod. “Got it.”

“Bingo!” Curtis shouted,
popping open a tall cabinet behind the front desk and staring at the sparse remnants
inside. Outside of two handguns, a shotgun, and some police duty belts, there
were a few Tasers, handcuffs, badges and random boxes of ammo. Curtis tossed
Paul a set of cuffs which he slipped into his back pocket.

“Any silencers in
there?” Paul asked, scanning the window of a small office in back.

Curtis laughed.
“In this shithole? No, but that’s a good idea. We’ll have to hit a big city cop
shop to find those…if we’re lucky.”